The Paradox: Balancing Improvement and Acceptance

“No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.” – Robert Holden

Self-improvement has always been of major interest to me. I love to listen to self-help audio books and podcasts and I’m always looking for ways to better myself in my personal and work life but something that I’ve been fighting with a lot recently is the concept of self-acceptance when you have such a strong desire for growth.

I should start off by saying that there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to improve any area of your life, however, there comes a point where it becomes more important for us to accept the way we are and our limitations without allowing them to affect the way we see ourselves.

Earlier on this year I was searching for a new lockscreen for my phone and stumbled across pictures of a Mrs. Mitchell and ever since then I’ve had to live with the fact I will never marry comedian David Mitchell. Was I devastated? sure… but the reality is that there will be another funny, posh and bearded soul ready to awkwardly sweep me off my feet someday. I’m kinda counting on it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are things in our lives that we’re going to have to look at and say “you know what, I can’t change this, so let’s stop spending so much time dwelling on it and focus on the things that I can change.”

An obsessive need for improvement implies that you’re never going to feel like you’re enough as you are because you could always do more and do better. Learning to stop and accept things the way they are may be the hardest part of your self-love journey but it’s one of the most grounding.